Write a six to nine-page (1500-2250 words) essay that relates and applies the course material found in Module Six to two of the online videos.
Videos:
● Behind the Wall; 2010 (video; 49:00 CC) https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2675576109
● Life Inside Out; 2005 (video, 1:13:29 CC) https://www.nfb.ca/film/life_inside_out/
Module 6, Section 6.2:
The vast majority of inmates are considered non-violent by police and correctional authorities because only 1 in 3 Canadian adults in correctional institutions are there for violent crimes (CCJC Admin, 2011; Calverley, 2015). Since violence offenders are only imprisoned after a victimization and often re-commit more violent offences on release, imprisonment gives an “amount of protection to vulnerable populations so small as to be much beneath what could be considered minimal” (Brodeur, 1996). Too often, prison environments actually reinforce criminal behaviour and can even harden non-violent low-risk individuals into committing worse crimes. Rather than keep people safe, the correction system “risks creating a criminal underclass that moves endlessly in and out of prison, committing more and more serious offences at each turn” (Clarke, 2011). For example, North America was ‘protected’ from marijuana-users at the cost of turning some of them into lives of crime through prison sentences that increased their exposure to violence and criminal networks. (Module 6, Section 6.2, Carceral States and Capitalism)
The role of criminal law and corrections is to show that there is no alternative to the capitalist market except incarceration. (Module 6, Section 6.2, Carceral States and Capitalism) Once a population willingly accepts the sacrifice of its poorest members, they shatter the unity – and thus political power – of their democracy, allowing elite power to once again dominate. (Module 6, Section 6.2, The Age of Retribution)
By embracing retribution, ‘get tough’ attitudes, and the vocabulary of punitiveness, politicians seemed to discover a magical political formula: “never be for (or capable of being portrayed as being for) criminals or prisoners as individuals or as a class.” (Module 6, Section 6.2, Governing through Crime)
“[c]arceral ideology, by definition, can never be discredited. If crime and murders increase under reformers, the reform is to blame. If crime and murders increase under the most well-funded police departments and harshest prosecutors on Earth, they simply need more funding and to be even harsher. It’s a rigged game—social science and data are irrelevant. What matters is The Narrative, and no amount of counter-narrative, counter facts, or glaring media double standards will stand in The Narrative’s way.” (Johnson, n.d.) (Module 6, Section 6.2, Governing through Crime)
“If we blame […] crack, our politicians are off the hook. Forgotten are the failed schools, the malign welfare programs, the desolate neighborhoods, the wasted years. Only crack is to blame. One is tempted to think that if crack did not exist, someone, somewhere would have received a federal grant to develop it.” (Walinsky, 1986) (Module 6, Section 6.2, Governing through Crime)
“refuse to lead citizens to higher ground, to challenge us, to inspire us to find our better selves. Instead they panders to our worst sentiments, personalise everything, deride experts and evidence, tells us that we are great as we are, that we have every right to feel morally superior. It divides the world up into good and bad, black and white. This world, to paraphrase sociologist Orrin Klapp, is destructively divided up into heroes (“hard-working, law-abiding tax payers”) and villains (criminals, terrorists and fools – all the elites and so-called experts who are ‘soft’ on crime and ‘soft’ on terror). This view gives no space to the idea of redemption or, for that matter, to compassion, and brooks no debate on what the evidence might tell us or about the costs of punishment.
And in the end, in the name of safety, we are less safe. In the name of democracy, we are less free. And in our refusal to have the debate, to move beyond our prejudices, our fears, our anger, we make Canada a meaner and smaller place.” (Himelfarb, 2011) (Module 6, Section 6.2, Governing through Crime)
